


You Know Better, Babe, Than To Look At Me Like That

by RoxanneTucker



Category: Leverage
Genre: A Long Road to Happily Ever After, Action & Romance, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Attempted Kidnapping, Drama & Romance, Erotic Games, F/M, Leverage's Newest Client, Romance, Roommates, Slow Build, Slow Burn, leverage - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-18 23:23:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8179727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RoxanneTucker/pseuds/RoxanneTucker
Summary: My attempt at giving Eliot a Happily Ever After. It's not Eliot's fault that the lady keeps showing up at their Boston pub to stare at him with admiring eyes. But she's scaring away Leverage's justifiably nervous clients and Nate has had it -- it's not Eliot's fault, but now it's Eliot's responsibility to get rid of her. What should he do when the lady he's trying to dissuade becomes the woman he wants to put his hands on? And then what should he do when she becomes Leverage's newest client?





	1. You Know Better, Babe, Than To Look At It Like That

**Author's Note:**

> The title of the story was taken from the Hozier song, "It Will Come Back."
> 
> _You know better babe, you know better babe,_  
>  _Than to smile at me, smile at me like that_  
>  _You know better babe, you know better babe,_  
>  _Than to hold me just, hold me just like that._  
>  _I know who I am when I'm alone_  
>  _Something else when I see you_  
>  _You don't understand, you should never know_  
>  _How easy you are to need_  
>  _Don't let me in with with no intention to keep me_  
>  _Jesus Christ, don't be kind to me._  
>  _Honey don't feed me I will come back._
> 
> The show never gave Eliot a chance for happily ever after. I wanted to try.

"You're going to have to go talk to her," Nate said matter-of-factly as he raised the rocks glass to his lips. 

Although there were several women in the lowlit Boston pub, the whole Leverage team knew who Nate was talking about.

Eliot scowled. "Why do I have to talk to her?"

Nate didn't raise his eyes from the golden liquid in the glass. "She's scaring away our clients."

Eliot jabbed his finger at the longhaired blond smiling at him from across the table. "Then make Parker do it. Parker's crazy will drive anyone away."

"I like her," Parker chirped back. "She stares at Eliot the way I stared at the Hope Diamond."

"She's right, man," Hardison said, leaning back in his chair with his shit-eating grin. "She gives you the same look I gave my Nana's cooking."

"Hardison..." Eliot growled as he glared at the whiz kid. 

"Look, Eliot," Sophie said, laying her hands in the middle of the table to draw everyone's attention. "We can't afford to have her staring at us every time you're in the bar. The people who come to us are already living in fear. No matter how innocent she looks, the intensity of her gaze is too ... intense. Our clients can't help but notice."

Eliot clenched his lips against his teeth. "Would you do it?" He gritted his teeth. "Please."

Sophie tsked. "And humiliate the poor woman. Never. What do you Americans like to say? 'Man up?' That's right. Man up and handle it." Sophie swirled her dark, pashmina shawl around her as she stood and gave Eliot a wink before she started for the door.

The other three -- the traitors -- stood as well. Parker and Hardison stopped beside his chair. 

"Be nice," Parker said, worrying her lip.

"Yeah, man," Hardison said, the same worried look on his face. "Don't 'disappear' her or anything."

Eliot's mouth dropped open. "Who do you think I am?"

Hardison just shrugged and they both headed for the subterranian pub door without looking reassured. 

Nate also stopped by his chair, swirling the last of the liquor in his glass. Eliot knew it would be refilled the instant Nate got to his apartment upstairs. 

"Unlike those two, I don't care how you get rid of her," Nate said without taking his eyes off the glass. 

Eliot huffed. "She's just a lonely lady at the bar."

"Maybe," Nate's eyes finally met Eliot's. "But she's getting in the way of us doing our job and no one's going to get in the way of me doing that."

"Us."

"Hm?"

Eliot's dark eyebrows lowered. "No one's going to get in the way of us doing our job."

"Right," Nate said without inflection. He lowered his glass and dropped his shoulders. "Screw her, kill her, make her cry. I don't care. Just take care of her."

Eliot lowered his eyes to his hands, white-knuckle fisted against the table to prevent them from knocking his boss in the mouth. Nate was on a downward trajectory again, leaning on the drink as an excuse, giving the alcohol room to make him an asshole. He was going to have to be dealt with, sooner than later if Eliot had anything had to say about it. 

But the man wasn't wrong.

Even now, with his back to her, Eliot could feel the woman's eyes on him. She had a way of doing that, making him aware of her although she'd been the one who'd started it all with her long, absorbed, unashamed looks. She didn't do it all the time -- that would have given him the creeps. But even if she only looked at him 3 or 4 times while they were both in the bar, the looks were always so unabashedly fascinated that Eliot felt the glow of them. They were like a warm medal against his skin.

She was a funny little thing. She'd shown up that first night a month-and-a-half ago, swathed against the Boston winter in an oversized anorak and sweater, baggy jeans and snow boots. Only her coat had come off as she sat at the bar and drank her bourbon neat, pulling down her hand-knitted scarf to take sips out of her glass as her dark brown eyes widened then watched Eliot play darts across the room. Being aware of his surroundings -- and every person in it -- was Eliot's job. And he was aware of the way she watched him like he was her favorite recreation.

But he didn't approach her like he'd approached the other women who'd watched him at that bar with hungry eyes. She wasn't his type. Her nose was a touch too long, her eyebrows a bit too dark and too much of a contrast with her red-brown-blond hair. Her hair was long, but it was always a mass of kinks and curls barely restrained in a thick braid or crazy bun. It felt like one touch and that hair would spring out and hurt somebody. She was small, shorter than him, and Eliot couldn't imagine she was hiding much behind the layers of sweaters and flannel shirts and scarves and oversized pants she always wore.

He hadn't realized he was looking forward to warmer weather.

But this had to end. Now. The last two clients had, unfortunately, picked up on the woman's constant gazes over at their table. Sophie was right. Her interest was too strong for the two people -- a woman who'd recently lost her husband because of toxic paint he'd been forced to work with; and an accountant who was terrified of being caught as the whistleblower against a local casino -- not to notice. They'd both left terrified, certain they were being watched. Nate and Sophie were still trying to convince the accountant to let their crew help.

Eliot stood and kicked back his seat before he could lose his nerve. He was a total fucking coward when it came to letting down women. In the past, he could have just drummed up a trip to a third-world country to get him out of a fix. But now, because of the people who needed Leverage, because of Nate and Sophie and Parker and, yes, even Hardison, he had to stick. And it looked like the lady wasn't giving up sipping her two bourbons, neat, several times a week at the bar anytime soon.

Eliot turned around and felt more than saw her wide, chocolate-brown eyes move over him, just like he knew they would. When their eyes met, she smiled tentatively, sweetly.

He couldn't fault her mouth. It was full and wide and quick to grin at the bartender or someone asking if the seat next to her was free. Eliot usually liked women in makeup with paint on their lips. But her lips, plump and magenta, looked good naked.

Her eyes never faltered as Eliot started walking toward her.

And THAT was the other reason Eliot had never taken her up on what she'd been offering for the last month-and-a-half. Because the coyness and tease that was so much a part of the game with other women, the little glances and glimpses of skin and accidental brushes, was nowhere to be seen with this woman. She had no game. She looked at him with ease and steadiness, her eyes telling him that she enjoyed -- was even fascinated -- by what she saw.

With so many shadows in his life, there was something equally exhilarating and terrifying in the open wondering gaze that watched him as he approached. But all Eliot could offer women was his don't-give-a-damn grin, his suggestive eyes, his growly voice making promises, and a single night in his bed making them come true.

Which is why he came to this woman without a smile.

"Hi," he said as he leaned against the bar next to where she sat. 

"Hello," she replied, her voice throaty and, to his surprise, touched with a British accent.

Eliot immediately turned to the bartender. "Brian, give her a Basil Hayden, neat, and I'll have a Guinness."

"You got it, Eliot."

Eliot turned back to face the woman. Her face was scrubbed clean and her hair was pulled back, barely restrained in a braid that had a fuzz of curlicues escaping down its length. She was wearing an old fisherman's sweater and she'd worried little holes in its cuffs where her thumbs poked through. "You haven't had your second drink yet, have you?" 

She grinned softly. "No. How did you know?"

"You're not the only one keeping an eye on things."

When, for the first time, she dropped her eyes away from him and looked down at her lap, he regretted the grim expression on his face.

"I'm sorry," she said, poking her thumbs together in her lap. "I must seem very foolish."

She seemed very young. He figured she was near his age -- late 20s, early 30s. But her inexperience made him feel like her grandfather.

"Foolish? No," Eliot said despite himself. "I'm flattered."

She raised her eyes to look at him. He'd caused her dark brows to crease into a worried frown. Her nose, he realized, had a little ball at its tip. It was cute.

"You must know that I'd never expected you to come to me," she said. "It's simply...I enjoy the look of you. You're very soothing."

Eliot surprised himself with a laugh. He leaned his head back, felt his long hair slide away from his face. "I've been called a lot of things by women, sweetheart," he said to the ceiling. "But I've never been called soothin'."

She was like a lollipop at the doctor's office; something too sweet and tempting to resist, even though you knew there would be pain after you accepted it. Her straight shooting called to him, called for him to enjoy it even if he could only do so for the next few minutes before he destroyed her hopes and sent her away. 

He put his forearm on the bar and slid it closer to her, dropped his head to look down at her. She smelled of jasmine and spice, more complex than he would have bet on. "What do you see when you're staring at me?"

A liar. A traitor. A bully. A thug, thief, assassin. 

A murderer.  


"I see a man who loves the people he's with." She didn't even stop to draw a breath before she started speaking, looking up at him, throaty accented words coming through soft lips. "There's a spark, a chemistry between the five of you. You're the family that everyone wants to be a part of. You hide your affection for them behind your gruffness, your glower. But then you give them one of your rare smiles, when you're beating your black friend at darts, when you're showing your blond friend how to drink whiskey. I see a painfully handsome man, a man who is confident in the two feet he plants on the ground and the shoulders that bear his burdens. You forget to wear your armor sometimes. I stare at you so much because I don't want to miss those moments."

As Eliot looked into her guileless brown eyes, he heard two drinks get plunked down near his elbow.

"Well..." he drawled, blinking to clear the warm haze from his brain. "That's a lot of plain talking from a woman I've never bought a drink for."

She smiled, pulled back from him. "It appears that is about to change."

As she reached for her drink, Eliot walked away two paces to grab an empty bar stool. He slipped it in beside her and took a seat, wrapping his hands around the cool glass of dark beer. The motions gave him a minute to think, to breathe. 

The actions prevented him from wrapping that braid around his fist and reeling her in to discover whether she could possibly taste as sweet as she seemed.

Family. Leverage Inc., had become his family, but one he couldn't share with anyone else. He'd thought, often, about how much his Dad would like Nate. How the man would have stroked back the few hairs he had left for Sophie and charmed Parker with his magic tricks. But Eliot was too much of a coward to go knock on his own father's door, afraid that the door would still be locked against him. So this feeling he had of the togetherness, the rightness, of this crew and their mission was one he'd kept all to himself. Until this funny little lady pulled it out of his heart and showed it to him.

He lifted his beer and clinked it against the glass in her hand. "I'm Eliot."

"My name is Sabrina."

Eliot closed his eyes and drank, the cold liquid washing away the lilt of her name. Once again, he could feel her eyes on him. It made him aware of the 10 o'clock shadow on his jaw, the strands of hair catching in the stubble as he tilted his head back. Her eyes made him aware of his throat, moving as he swallowed the beer down.

He opened his eyes and looked at her with an incredulous huff of a laugh, met her easy and admiring eyes. She was making this damn hard. "What are you doing here, Sabrina?"

She shrugged her thin shoulders in that big sweater. "What is anyone doing in a bar, evening after evening, always by themselves? Seeking a little light and warmth and human interaction. We introverts like to depend on the kindness of strangers."

Of course she'd quote Tennessee Williams at him, his favorite fucking playwright. 

"You seem like the kind of a woman who'd read at the bar," he said as he watched her sip her drink. "But you've never brought a book. You don't even look at your phone."

"I can pretend to be comfortable being all alone at home."

"Do you have a cat?"

She had to raise the back of her hand to her mouth to cover the sputter of laughter so soon after she'd taken a sip of bourbon. Her laughter behind her hand was effervescent, like pop bubbles bursting at the top of the glass.

"You have me pigeon-holed as a right proper spinster, don't you?" she asked, no offense in the eyes that sparkled at him.

He motioned to the hand -- the left hand -- over her mouth. "Well, you're single."

He was sorry to have mentioned it because when she lowered her hand back to the bar, a cloud had muted the delight on her face. "Yes, I suppose so." She rubbed her right thumb over her left ring finger. She rubbed like something had once sat there, but was now lost. "I'm a widow."

Eliot took deep breaths as he watched her stroke that phantom ring. Of course. How could he have missed the signs? Her need to be around people, her unwillingness to paint herself up for attention, the groundedness of her that let her sit there night after night without asking for a thing. The simple pleasure she took in looking at him. How did Sophie miss the signs? How did Nate?

He slid his arms, crossed on the bar, closer to her. "I'm real, real sorry," he said low, his head dipped toward her. He wanted to touch her. But he didn't.

"Yes, so am I," Sabrina said, raising her eyes from her hand to give him a soft, resolute smile. "It's been two years. I'm glad to say I'm doing better. He was a soldier. Were you a solider?"

Jesus. Of course. "Yes. Was he deployed?"

"No," she sighed heavily. "It was ludicrous, a Jeep accident at Fort Jackson where we were stationed. But it took forever to be sorted. They just recently sent the few personal effects that were on him. I haven't had the strength to open the envelope yet."

"What unit was he with?

Eliot would get Hardison to look up the incident report. Even with the standard grind of military bureaucracy, an automobile accident shouldn't take two years to get resolved. He could do this for her; make sure she didn't need him. Them. Make sure she didn't need Leverage Inc.

Because now, even more than before, he knew he couldn't get involved with her.

He looked up from his wrist on the bar, flexing against the wide leather band wrapped around it. "Sabrina, I gotta ask you a favor." He met her eyes. She was so open to him. "My team and I, we help people. I can't tell you too much. But sometimes, these people are being watched. Or followed. And when you look over at us a lot..."

She slowly raised her hands to her cheeks as they flushed pink. She had that complexion, what did they call it, English rose. All creamy and quick to blush. "Oh no," she gasped, her eyes wide pools of horror. "Oh, please forgive me."

He leaned closer to her, made a concerted effort to keep his hands on the bar. "Stop it. There's nothin' to forgive," he said, fast and low. "But if you're gonna keep coming here, you can't -- watch me. I'm sorry. I don't know how to put it any easier."

She hadn't lowered her hands from her cheeks. "It's fine; it's not your responsibility to manage me. Even though..." her hands covered her eyes with a groan, "...I've made it your responsibility. I'm so sorry. Please apologize for me to your friends. I hope I haven't hampered your efforts."

The grip he had on his biceps was going to leave marks. He wanted to reach for her. He wanted to erase the last minute and put that easy, open joy back on her face. "It's fine," he urged.

"No, it's not." She lowered her hands to her lap and, to Eliot's misery, revealed the sheen of tears in her eyes. "I will make myself absent. You won't have to worry about me again." She stood and grabbed her army green anorak off the stool.

Eliot stood as well, pushing back his infernal hair as it swung into his face. "Sit back down," he growled down at her. She was small. "You don't have to --"

"Yes, I do. I would never re-pay the pleasure you've given me by continuing to be a nuisance. And I would never be able to keep my eyes off of you." Her two fingers brushed his cheek as soft and warm as duckling feathers as those big dark eyes looked up at him. "Let me do this for you."

Her size made her quick, and she was around him before he could stop her, pulling on her coat when Eliot noticed something beneath her stool. It was her scarf; the knitted black-and-white one she always wore. He cursed as he shoved the stool out of the way to grab it and then straightened and turned to the door.

She was already gone and up the stairs. Out of sight. 

"Goddammit," he swore at himself. Brilliant fucking job, Eliot. Break the heart of a mourning widow who likes the look of you because you remind her of her dead husband. Then make her cry and chase her out into a freezing winter night. Real class work.

He yelled across the bar for Brian to put the drinks on his tab and, gripping the scarf in his fist, sped for the door. 

\----------

The instant he shoved open the door into the sub-street-level landing of the bar entrance he felt it. It was sleeting. And Eliot hadn't grabbed his coat. Was only in an untucked cotton oxford, sleeves rolled up around his forearms, and jeans. 

Perfect.

Eliot gritted his teeth and ran up the stairs, the cement steps already turning slippery under his workboots. At the top of the stairs Eliot looked right, then left. The city street was empty, of cars and people and innocent women he'd made cry, the blobs of streetlight with the sleet hissing past them only making the street look more lonely. 

"Shit," he cursed. Where could she... He looked down -- and saw the streak of her snow boots in the gathered slush on the sidewalk. It was heartbreaking to see that she'd been rushing, running to get away from the humiliation he'd caused her. But her slipping and sliding foot steps turned to the left, in an alley between the next building and the one beside it. Why would she have gone that way? Was it a short cut? Was she trying to hide from him?

Eliot had dropped the scarf and was running before his brain had fully registered what he'd heard -- a muffled shriek in the alley. His blood ran colder than the sleet dripping down his skin.

Thank God for the narrow alley. It blocked the worst of the wet and Eliot was able to get traction, dig in his boots and run faster. Run faster to the opposite end of the long alley where a van's door was thrown open on the street and three men dressed in black and wearing ski masks were trying to shove Sabrina inside. 

Good girl. Even with her feet and body lifted, Sabrina twisted and fought like a feral thing, her multi-colored braid whipping around her. One thug grunted, snapping his hand back from Sabrina's snarling teeth. It gave her just enough time to see Eliot racing down the alley for her.

"Eliot!" she screamed, her eyes wild. 

Her scream clawed into Eliot, whipped him faster. But it took away his advantage. Glancing up and seeing the hell bearing down on them gave the men the spurt of strength they needed to toss her inside the van. One jumped in beside her and slammed the door shut while the other two raced for the driver and passenger side doors.

Eliot leapt onto the van's running board just as the van screeched away from the curb, catching the passenger door before it slammed closed. He shoved the door open and grabbed the gun the ski-masked man was pulling from his pocket, throwing it to the floor. As the car picked up speed, Eliot dodged two punches and then leaned out just enough to get some give on the flopping seatbelt. Confident that Eliot was falling, the man leaned out to give him a shove. Eliot had the belt wrapped around the man's neck before he knew what was happening. 

Eliot leaped into the van as it took a screeching turn of a corner and gave an elbow jab to the driver's nose as he choked out Mr. Seatbelt. When he felt the man slump, Eliot turned to slam his boot on the break while he gave three punishing punches to the driver's sternum. Following his body's instinct to curl up on itself, the man took his foot off the gas. Eliot punched him one more time to his already broken nose, and it was lights out for the driver. 

As Eliot slid the van's gears into "Park" in the middle of the empty city street, he heard the door slide open. He looked out the passenger window.

The man held an ashen Sabrina against him, a black-coated arm around her waist and a dull black Sig P320 pressed to her temple. He backed away slowly from the van, pulling her stiffly with him as Eliot opened the passenger door and stepped out, pushing his soaked hair back and squinting his eyes against the sleet.

"Don't you fucking move," the man warned.

Eliot planted himself, but kept his sights on the man's trigger finger as he and Sabrina inched backwards. "You don't want to do this, man," Eliot growled. 

"This doesn't concern you, asshole," the man shouted. "Just turn around and find yourself another piece of ass."

"Ain't gonna happen." The man's finger on the trigger was steady enough. Killing her wasn't part of her kidnappers' plan. But Sabrina didn't know that. So this man was going to pay for her panic-blown pupils and the cold sleet dripping down her face like tears.

"Eliot," she called, her voice reedy, desperate. "I think I'm going to be sick."

"Bitch, don't you dare --

A fight was like breathing for Eliot. Like a warm bath. It was where he excelled. It was where he was home. So panic was never a part of a fight, no matter how many times he was punched. Or stabbed. Or burned. And once he'd taken the measure of the men trying to kidnap Sabrina, there'd been no panic in this fight. 

Not until he watched her dark eyes roll back in her head and her body slump against the kidnapper, her head lolling forward. Tiny, swimming in the soaked anorak that must have belonged to her husband, she looked ... gone. 

Eliot took an agonized, unthinking step forward as the man clenched her against him and pointed the gun over her shoulder at Eliot.

"Don't." While the kidnappers wanted Sabrina alive, the same couldn't be said for her attempted rescuer. 

This life-or-death realization was probably why they were both so surprised when Sabrina swept his hand and the gun over their heads while slamming her head back into his nose and stomping her foot down onto his toes. When his arm loosened, Sabrina swung around and kneed the man in the balls. Doubled over in agony, Sabrina was able to rip the gun out of his hand. 

"I don't --" she hit the side of his ski-mask covered head with the butt of the gun. "Like --" She hit him again. "Guns...pointed...at...ME!" The man went to his knees and then face first to the street as she clobbered him. Eliot caught her and grabbed the gun out of her hands before she caved in his skull.

"Easy, easy," Eliot soothed as he pulled her against him with one arm and shoved the gun into the back of his jeans. Both arms free, he pulled her close as her breath exploded out in reedy gasps. "It's okay. I got you."

Any questions about what had just happened were stalled when her gasps turned into a broken sob against him. Water was now streaming out of her coat, and she vibrated against him with cold and shock. His shirt was see through in the frigid cold and his hair was dripping onto her. He needed to get them inside. 

He looked up, glimpsed the corner street sign. Thank God. 

"My apartment's a block from here," he said as he used a band always on his wrist to tie back his dripping hair.

He couldn't tell if she was nodding or shivering. But it didn't matter. He pulled her to the van to grab the gun off the floorboard and rip off the men's masks -- she didn't recognize any of them -- and then hustled her down a block to his building, disassembling the guns and burying the pieces in different trash canisters as he went.

He took her through the lobby and up the elevator of the 10-story, mid-century building; she was shivering too hard to take the fire escape to his rooftop apartment as he normally would have done. The instant his apartment door was closed behind them, he started unzipping her sodden coat. 

"You-r-r-r fl-fl-oors," she tried to say through stuttering teeth. The magenta lips he'd appreciated earlier were now an official purple. "G-g-g-g-et t-t-t-owels-s-s."

"Quiet," he grunted, sheer will keeping his own teeth from chattering. They were both soaking a $23,000 rug he'd shipped from Istanbul and hard wood floors he'd sanded and stained himself. When he stripped her coat from her arms, her fisherman sweater hung in a wet, wool-smelling cape to her knees. She was too stiff to even wrap her arms around herself, so he pulled it off of her with a barely a thought to whether she wore anything beneath.

She did. A man's oversized white t-shirt. A soaked white t-shirt that showed off a pink bra and petite breasts and curvy waist and thin but strong arms, more body than he had the imagination to dream up at the bar or the energy to focus on now. 

He turned her around and pushed her down the hall toward his bathroom. Once inside the small, white-tiled room, he pushed back the curtain to jerk the shower to hot -- it took awhile to get warm water in these old buildings -- and shoved her down onto the toilet seat. When he wrenched her snow boot off, water poured onto the white tile floor. He pulled her to standing once she was barefoot.

Eliot wasn't a tall guy, but she barely reached his nose. She kept her chin against her chest, shuddering with the cold, and her multi-colored hair was a dark lump of braid hanging over her shoulder. Her wet, oversized jeans barely clung to her hipbones. 

"Can you handle the rest of it?" Eliot asked gruffly.

"S-s-s-s-ure," she mumbled. But when she raised her hands to her button fly, he saw that her hands were claws, the tips of her fingers red with pain as the building steam in the bathroom warmed them from numbness. Eliot swallowed, squeezed his fists. Then he went to his knees and with a quick double-tug, pulled her husband's jeans off her hips and discovered she had a soft and plentiful ass. 

Thank God her underwear -- purple with yellow polka dots -- stayed in place. Her hand was delicate on his shoulder as she steadied herself to step out of her jeans, her muscles long and flexing in her sleek, pale legs as steam billowed up around them.

"Get in," Eliot commanded as he stood, as much of a bark as he'd ever given his battalion. 

Her hand flapped at the shower. "You should probably--"

He turned and wrenched open the bathroom door. "I'll get towels and dry clothes." He slammed the door behind him.

What had she'd been going to say? he fumed as he stalked toward his bedroom. That he should strip down? That he should get in with her? In his bedroom, he ripped off his wet shirt and then threw in a ball at his closet door. It made a satisfying "thunk" against the wood. He put his hands on jeans zipper, and then thought about opening his bedroom window before he took them off. Let the cold have a conversation with what was happening down there.

He wasn't mad at her. He winced as he pulled down his zipper. He was disgusted by himself. She was the victim of an attempted kidnapping, a woman who'd just had a GUN pressed to her head, a widow who'd sacrificed her husband to the U.S. military. 

But when he'd been kneeling in front of her, when his brain should have been focusing on how he was going to keep her from going into hypothermic shock after her ordeal, all he could think about was peeling down those bright panties and finding out what the steam tasted like floating between her thighs. 

He wrenched down his jeans and soaked boxers and slapped his cock, half-hard despite the cold. "Behave," he growled at it. 

Dried and in his robe, Eliot grabbed towels and the largest sweatshirt and sweatpants he could find and headed to the bathroom. He cracked the bathroom door, letting loose a billow of soap-smelling steam.

"Sabrina, I'm putting towels and dry clothes on the floor," he called. He didn't trust himself to step into the room. 

The shower turned off. "I'm done Eliot," she said, her delicate voice sounding stronger. "I don't want to use all the hot water."

"You okay gettin' out?" 

"Yes, thank you, I'm fine."

"I'll wait out here in case you need anything." He closed the door and leaned against the door jam. He may be a disgusting son of a bitch, but he didn't want her cracking her skull on the tile. 

A few minutes later, the bathroom door opened. 

"You should get in the shower right away." With her wet hair tied up in a towel turban and his old sweat suit eating her up, her anxious eyes looked massive in her fine-boned face. 

Eliot smiled despite himself. "You never have to worry about me, darlin'"

"I'm so sorry to ask; you've done so much already but --" She motioned to her hair. "Without a combthrough, it will be a nightmare."

He opened his bathroom door wider and stepped in. Something about her accent made even asking for a brush charming. She'd gathered her clothes and neatly hung them over the towel racks. Her pink bra and purple underwear dripped onto his floor. He opened his bathroom cabinet, pulled out his brush, and turned to give it to her.

He held on when her hand wrapped around the handle. Her eyes startled up to his. Her cheeks were rosy from the steamy heat of the bathroom and her pupils were no longer those wide pools of panic. 

"You doin' okay?" he asked.

Slowly, she nodded. "I'm unsettled. But...yes, I'm okay."

"Go keep warm on the couch. I'll be out in a second."

When she turned to walk out of the room, it took everything in Eliot not to pat her bottom. She closed the door and Eliot leaned over to turn on the shower, only his desire to recover from the lingering effects of the freezing night keeping him from turning the water to cold. He was going to need to be at full strength if he was going to protect her. And he was feeling a mighty powerful protective urge. He needed to call the team; he should have done it already. He should have activated Hardison, gotten him out to the scene to see if there were any street cameras to help identify and trace the men, to track where they'd come from and where they were going.

Tomorrow, Sabrina was going to be Leverage Inc.'s newest client. Eliot didn't have a "policy" about staying away from their clients, but the couple of times he'd allowed himself to touch a woman they were helping, it had made him sloppy. The last thing that Sabrina needed -- with a broken heart, a yen for a dude that reminded her of her military husband, and kidnappers at her door -- was Eliot off his game. So he was going to keep his hands off the petite British lady and let the team enfold her in their might tomorrow. 

But for tonight, just for a few hours more, he was going to keep her to himself and enjoy her as the woman who liked him and trusted him and called for him before she knew he could do anything to save her.

\----------

Clean and wearing loose drawstring pants and a long-sleeved t-shirt, Eliot heard an annoyed humph the instant before he stepped into the soft lamp light of his living room. On his lumpy brown velvet couch, perfect for movie nights and video game competitions with friends who had no idea about Eliot's millions or professional life, sat a cross-legged Sabrina, glaring at a snarl the size of Eliot's fist in her damp hair. 

He couldn't help but chuckle. In his oversized grey sweat suit -- the well-meaning Christmas gift from an elderly neighbor had been a Godsend -- she looked about twelve years old. "What did you do?" he asked as she tried to work his brush into the mess.

"At home, I use lotions and noxions and..." When she huffed and lifted her hands in frustration, his brush stayed suspended in the snarl. "Not all of us are blessed with perfect hair."

Eliot's long brown hair was mostly dry, parted in the middle. He kept it long to shield his eyes from the enemy. And to avoid the waste-of-time trips to the barber. "Stop. Stop!" he demanded, pushing her hands away to take hold of the brush. The wooden handle was warm from her palms. He carefully extricated the bristles from the tangle of blond, auburn, and brown hair.

"Face that way." He motioned with the brush. Sabrina turned to the side and Eliot sat behind her, sweeping the thick lank of hair behind her ear and setting to work picking out the knot. 

Even though every hair he saved tried to wrap around his finger, it was a surprisingly relaxing task. The hair she had been able to comb through reached halfway down her back in a thick mass of still-damp curls and twists that stroked his wrists and hands whenever he moved. The room was warm -- he'd cranked the heat -- and his dude shampoo smelled different coming off her, like she'd added cinnamon sugar to the bottle.

"I hope you don't mind; I made us both tea," she said, her voice soft in the comfortable quiet. He paused as she leaned away to pick up two steaming mugs he'd noticed on the coffee table. She handed him a mug over her shoulder, and Eliot took a sip before he gave her a thanks and put the cup down on the sofa table. He'd prefer whiskey right now.

"You have a lovely collection of teas. I was surprised."

He quirked a grin. The angry snarl was getting smaller. 

"Sorry. I sound like a snob. It's only ... Americans and teas ... you know ..."

"Yeah, I know." He was glad to see, when she tipped her head to take a sip, that the warmth of the room and her own blushing had colored the tip of her ear a rosy pink. "Believe me, I love my suntea with a cup of sugar. But Sophie -- she's on our team -- she's taught me a thing or two about teas. She's British too. You'll meet her tomorrow."

"Will I?"

He'd worked the snarl down to a manageable quarter size. He put the brush down and began carefully picking it apart with his long fingers.

"Do you remember how I said we help people?"

"Yes." 

He was kind of amazed that every strand he picked out and ran his calloused finger along seemed to be a different color. "We're going to figure out why someone tried to kidnap you."

With the snarl destroyed, he picked the brush back up and gently ran it through her hair, following the bristles with his hand. Her breath came out in a long exhale that had nothing to do with cooling her tea. 

"'Someone tried to kidnap you;' when you say it, it sounds so unreal," she said. "Not that --" The edge to her laugh made Eliot run his fingers into her damp hair along with the brush. "Not that this whole evening hasn't been unreal. Look at where I am! Look at what you're doing to me! It's as though I'm lucid dreaming and I've purposely transformed my nightmare into my fantasy."

There she went again, with that plain talking that made him hard. But he wasn't going to say anything. He couldn't. Not when he was still brushing her hair, taking long, deep strokes through it while the dampness of her curls still let him. Not when he was burying his hand under the mass to hold it up to the bristles, allowing him to brush her knobby spine and the tender skin of her neck with his knuckles. Not when he wasn't ready to put the brush down. Not quite yet.

He inhaled and exhaled audibly, and brushed her hair in the same slow and steady rhythm for the next few minutes. When her soft breaths joined the pace and her pale neck showed as her head relaxed just a little to one side, Eliot lifted the brush from her hair and set it aside.

He stood, walked around her, and sat back down on the couch facing her. 

"Do you know what those men wanted from you?"

Her technicolor curls dripped around her face as she shook her head. "At first, I assumed dreadful things," she said to her lap as her thumbs, barely peeking out of the cavernous sleeves, jammed together. "But their clothes and their firearms and their bearing. They had plans for me other than rape."

She said it so matter-of-factly. Eliot's eyes narrowed. "How do you know that? And how did you know how to get out of that body hold?"

When she lifted her head, those dark, wide eyes flashed steel at him. "Do you only deal with incapable women?"

"Far from it," Eliot shot back. "But the average citizen doesn't know how to assess military bearing or how to switch on the safety when they're upsweeping a firearm. Yeah, I saw you do that."

Her chin tilted up. "My father was British intelligence. He ensured that my sisters and I knew how to protect ourselves."

That chin. It was round and stubborn, part of the reason her mouth was so wide and full. He could take a bite out of it. With her body buried in his sweat suit, her soft accent and her bare feet, he'd allowed himself to think of her as young. As innocent. It was a comfort to think of her as vulnerable. Because he didn't know how he was going to keep his hands off the plain-talking smart lady who knew how to kick ass when necessary. 

A begrudging grin kicked up one side of his mouth. "You mean there's more than one of you out in the world?"

That chin softened with her smile. "I'm the oldest of four girls."

"God help your poor father." Eliot paused. "Do you think your connection to British intelligence has anything to do with it?"

"I don't see how. My father died ten years ago."

Her dad was Mi6, her husband was U.S. military, and her crush was ex-Black Ops. Sabrina, it seemed, had a type. 

"I'm sorry to keep pressing but... what about your husband's accident? You said it was just cleared up?"

Sabrina flopped to the side, letting the soft velvet couch support her misery, and Eliot again saw the young woman without walls. "I can't imagine anything kidnap-worthy in that. There was no scandal. It was simply awful. Tediously awful."

His eyes traveled over her as she reclined there in his oversized grey sweat suit, eyes closed, a miserable frown marring those lips. "I'll pick up that envelope of his stuff when I get your things tomorrow."

Her eyes popped open. "Get my things?"

"Until we figure out what's going on, you can't go home." Eliot watched her carefully. Sometimes, the most-together clients didn't lose it until they realized that their day-to-day lives were going to be affected, that the bad guys weren't just going to disappear. He'd seen full-blown panic attacks happen at the mention of canceling dentist appointments and skipping PTA meetings. "Those guys knew your movements, they knew where they could grab you. They're going to try again."

He could see her gears working. "Will I be staying here?" She touched her tongue to her bottom lip. "With you?"

He could see no panic attacks hovering in her dark, open eyes.

He pushed off the couch. "For tonight at least. Let's get you to bed. The night's going to hit you like a ton of bricks when your shock wears off. You got any bumps or bruises we need to take care of?"

She placed her mug on the coaster on the coffee table -- Eliot appreciated that she'd used coasters -- and stood. "I don't think so."

He turned on his heel. "Come on."

Movement was good. Talking was good. Getting away from her, that was good, too.

He led her down the short hallway, motioning her through into his bedroom while he stayed in the doorway. He'd put clean sheets on the futon of his Japanese platform bed and left a lamp glowing on the bedside table. 

She took a few steps in, glanced around, and then looked back at him. "I don't want to take your bed," she said. "I'm happy on the couch."

"You're sleeping here." Behind the three Tibetan tapestries hanging on one wall were three windows that would have given a great view of Eliot's rooftop garden and downtown Boston if he hadn't sealed the windows tight and boarded them up. His bedroom was the one strategic place where he could keep her safe.

She snapped her lips shut against arguing when she got a look at his chin. It could get pretty fucking stubborn, too. 

As she moved closer to the bed, her eyes traveled around the room, passing over his small Buddha shrine and meditation mat in the corner, over his clutter-free bureau top, over the wide mahogany medallion he'd carved himself and hung over the bed. "You're either a very neat man," she said as her dark eyes glanced over her shoulder at him. "Or you're always expecting company."

The razor-sharp bed corners and precisely organized footlockers were the only part of the military that still made sense to Eliot. He'd noticed her efforts to be neat and respectful in his home, and he appreciated it. Not enough, however, to respond to the tease in her eyes. Or to let her know that she was the only "company" that had been in his bedroom since he'd moved to Boston. 

His one night stands never happened here.

"Get some sleep," he said gruffly from the doorway. Her fingers twined around themselves as she turned to face him fully. Her hair had dried and was a soft billow around her face and down her shoulders. "You're safe here. We're going to keep you safe."

"I've never doubted it for a moment," she said softly. "But Eliot..."

He put a hand on the door jam.

"You don't need to sleep on the couch."

He straightened his arm. It was the wedge keeping him from walking into that room. "I do, Sabrina."

He felt those big eyes taking him in. Then he saw the color brighten the tops of her cheeks, obvious even in the low lamp light. He saw the resignation lower her eyes and curl the tips of her mouth into a sorrowful smile.

"Of course," she said. As she turned to the bed, her thin shoulders slumped in the giant sweatshirt. "I understand..."

He was a pace into the room before he'd even realized he'd let go of the molding. "What do you understand?" With her back to him, he could see her head was lowered, her spine curved. He'd done that. He'd defeated her in a way an attempted kidnapping hadn't.

She shook her head. "It's not your responsibility. You saved my life tonight. You're not responsible for playacting desire as well."

God. Damn. He was just behind her now. "Sabrina..."

"Please forgive me Eliot. I'm behaving like such a goose." She dropped her head into her hands. Fuck. Was she crying? "If I hadn't pushed myself on you, you wouldn't be embroiled in my mess now. Now you're forced to share your home and give up your bed to a woman you don't even want and..."

He slipped his hand under her sweatshirt and gripped her naked waist. Her words stopped with a gasp.

He could see nothing but her feathery soft curls and the unending grey of the sweat suit. But he could feel, feel as his hand straightened out, as his fingers feathered over the flat, warm skin of her abdomen, as his middle finger hooked into the indent of her belly button and slowly turned her toward him , his callous playing in the warm dip. He could feel the skin slide over his palm, over the pads made tough through years of hits although the heat of her made them tingle. He could feel her opposite hip bone collide into his hand as she faced him, feel the soft, taut skin of her hip and waist and ribs as he slid his hand up her, then feel the high tight curve of her breast as he feathered his thumb across the underside. He could feel her skin jump and belly tremble as he worked his hand back down, as he shoved his fingers into her waistband, wrapped around her naked hip, and at long last, let his fingers dig into the soft, plush give at the top of her ass.

"All night long," he growled, digging his opposite his hand into her curls as he held her face, as he finally let himself take in her trembling, open mouth and her dark eyes, pupils blown wide not with panic this time, but with lust. Lust for him. "All night long I've known your bra and panties were drying on my radiator. All night long, I've known that nothing but warm, naked skin was underneath this sweat suit I tried to hide you in. All night long I've been fighting the need to strip you out of it and cover you with nothing but me."

When he tilted her head up to him, when he leaned down and knocked his hair out of the way so that he could take one taste of her lips, the soft press and the single sweet lick across her bottom lip was in total contrast to the fingers digging into her ass, pushing her hard and high against his erection. 

He released her lips, butt and curls with the same abrupt motion and stepped back from her. Stepped back and back and back all the way to the door as she swayed and then caught herself. 

"Because I won't take you doesn't mean I don't want to," he said, voice steady while his body howled. "Now go to sleep."

She was a soft fantasy -- sweatsuited and feather haired -- audibly panting next to his bed when he closed the door.


	2. You Know Better, Babe, Than To Talk To It Like That

Eliot wanted to make her breakfast.

But he knew he couldn't make her breakfast in his apartment, not with all of the confusing messages that would send -- "I'm sorry" and "I will take care of you" and "Let me see that mouth open wide." Which was why, after a sleepless night and a subdued ride over to Nate's place, he was letting the rest of the Leverage crew treat him like a short-order cook.

"Don't forget the whip cream," Parker called, her body swaying happily as she sat at the island next to Sabrina.

Eliot slid her chocolate chip pancakes onto a plate. "I know how you like 'em, Parker," Eliot growled. He dolloped hand-whipped cream into a high mound in the middle of her pancakes and then finished it off with back-and-forth stripes of chocolate syrup. He set the plate in front of Parker. 

Sophie, sitting on the opposite side of Sabrina, shuddered as she sipped her coffee. "I don't know how you manage all that sugar first thing in the morning."

"Why is why," Eliot said, lifting her omelet out of the skillet and placing it on her waiting plate, "you get an egg-white omelet, cut fruit and turkey bacon."

Parker wrinkled her nose at Sophie's plate.

"I always say if, if it ain't got cheese on it, it's not worth eating," Hardison called from his console, continuing to work as he shoveled Eliot's triple-cheese egg, sausage, onion, and pepper skillet concoction into his mouth. 

Done with the hoard -- Nate, when he finally got his hangover ass down here, was just going to want black coffee -- Eliot turned back to the burner and licked his finger before touching the surface of a hot skillet.

"Careful," Sabrina said.

His hair was held back from his face with a navy bandana, and Eliot was able to look over his shoulder at her without the mess falling into his eyes. She was wearing one of his flannels, a red one that brought out the paleness of her skin, and yesterday's jeans. Although she'd been trying not to watch him all morning -- he'd missed the heat -- she was watching him now, worry marking that soft place between her dark brows. She was worried he'd hurt himself.

"I'm alright," he said, softly. The smile that had begun on his face ended when he noticed Sophie and Parker share a glance.

He turned back to the stovetop. Grabbing the bowl sitting off to the side, he ladled the crepe batter onto the wide skillet and then used the side of his spatula to spread the batter out. He snapped the towel off his shoulder and used it to pull the bubbling apple-and-cinnamon filling from the oven. When two golden crepes were finished, he rolled the delicate pastry around the filling, dusted powdered sugar across the top, and completed the plate with a dollop of homemade apple butter he'd brought from his pantry.

She was quiet, looking down at the plate when he slid it in front of her.

He realized, only then, that he'd never asked what she wanted. He'd never asked if she liked crepes. Or if she had any allergies. Was she gluten-free? Did she...?

"They're beautiful, Eliot," she said, her face as soft and open and admiring as he could dream up. "Thank you."

"They..." Eliot cleared his throat. "They should go well with your tea."

"Yes."

As she picked up her fork and lowered her eyes to her plate, Eliot realized that the other three had stopped eating. With their forks hovering in mid air, they all stared at him. Open mouthed. 

Eliot glared at them. "What?"

Hastily, they lowered their eyes back to their plates and finished their breakfasts. 

Nate finally clanged down the circular staircase when Eliot was putting the last dish in the dishwasher. Not even the shower he'd just taken -- his hair was still wet -- could wash away the paleness of his skin and the bags under his eyes. Eliot, who was working on no sleep, thought he looked fresh as a daisy standing next to Nate. He wiped down the stovetop and hung the wet cloth in the sink while Nate mainlined his coffee. Eliot was glad Sophie and Parker had taken Sabrina over to the console, where they were occupying her with small talk. 

"I told you to get rid of her," Nate said with his eyes closed, letting the caffeine hit his system. "Not make her a client."

Eliot crossed his arms over his chest. "She needs help, man."

"We'll see." The high and mighty Nate Ford. He never liked it when the team brought in their own clients. It usurped his power. The more time Nate spent crawling around in his own hell, the more he liked to be the one to choose which victims he'd lift up from theirs.

Nate turned his back on Eliot and headed into the living room. Fists safely restrained in the crooks of his arm, Eliot followed. 

"Okay, run it," Nate said. 

Eyeing the tension between the two men, Hardison walked around the console with the remote in his hand. He pointed it at the screens -- and then stopped. Turned to face Sabrina.

"We've never done this with the client in the room," he said in his deep voice. "I hope this is okay."

"It's fine. Please." As she sat at the table, her hands clenched, Eliot could see the blush rising on her face. "I'm sorry to be a burden. Whatever you need to..."

"Just run it, Hardison," Nate interrupted.

Only Sophie's quick hand on Eliot's shoulder kept him from tearing the drunk in half.

Hardison clicked the remote and quickly started talking, a few documents and a driver's license picture showing up on the screens. "So, Sabrina Jane Clarent is a 31-year-old data entry freelancer from Maidstone, England." He gave Sabrina a smile and a nod, and then centered his attention on the screens. "She's been an American citizen for nine years, since shortly after she married Daniel Stephen Clarent of the U.S. Army. Nothing unusual turned up in her financials or her background check. She receives a small benefit from her father's pension; after a long career with the British Security Service and then the Secret Intelligence Service, Matthew Davis died of lung cancer ten years ago. She also received a death gratuity when Sgt. Clarent died two years ago after his Jeep overturned on base.

"Now, the only thing unusual about the accident was how long they took to close the investigation on it," Hardison said as Sabrina's dead husband smiled down at them from his military ID. He was a good-looking, All-American boy; strong-jawed, sheared blond hair, blue eyes free of guilt or grief. Eliot wondered if he looked like that in his first military ID. "They only closed it last month, and I can't find anything in the files I hacked that make it clear why they kept the investigation open or what they were looking for. As far as I can tell, Sgt. Clarent was just driving through a woodsy part of base at night, missed a turn, and flipped. The accident report says that he was all alone and that he broke--"

"Dammit Hardison," Eliot growled. They were all such fucking sociopath's that if it wasn't for Eliot's fascination with her, his need to set his eyes on her every 60 seconds or so, they probably would have all missed it -- that tremble of her full ripe lower lip. 

Hardison raised the fist with the remote in it to his mouth. "Oh damn. I'm sorry. My mind gets going..." His arm rotated like he was running an old-fashioned movie projector.

Sabrina pressed her fingers against that lip. "No, I'm being silly. One would think I'd be used to the reality by now."

Sophie, sitting beside her, took her hand from her mouth and enfolded it. "We never get used to the loss of a loved one," she comforted her. "What are your thoughts? Do you think your husband's death could be connected to the kidnapping attempt?"

Eliot saw that those small, short-nailed hands squeeze at Sophie's. He was glad she finally had a friend. "I told Eliot last night that I don't know how it could. But, I don't know how any of my life could trigger a kidnapping. It's very quiet. This morning is the most I've spoken to people in months."

Eliot was glad Sabrina's back was to Parker. He didn't think she'd appreciate Parker's pushed-out lower lip of sympathy.

With his hands laced behind his head, Nate stared at the ceiling in a lounge chair away from the group. "You said you hadn't opened the envelope of the stuff that was on your husband when he crashed." His voice was pointed, with none of the softening the others gave her. "When was the last time you saw it?"

"When I put it in my safe two weeks ago."

Nate's hands unlaced and dropped to his lap, heaving his body forward to -- finally -- look at her. "You put it in a safe? Is it a good safe?"

Sabrina nodded, her dark brows furrowing between her eyes. "My father gave it to me."

Nate grinned and motioned at her slowly. "She put the envelope in a safe given to her by a spy." He stood with a slap of his hands.

"Eliot and Parker, break into her safe and get that envelope. There are going to be people watching her place; see if you can get anything to ID them."

Sabrina tried to break in. "Sir--"

"Hardison, keep searching those army records. There's got to be something there that hints at what they were looking for."

"I can--"

"Sophie, you're helping me locate that accountant. He's gone to ground and I want to find him before the mob bosses do."

"Mr. Ford!" 

That throaty exclamation had them all facing her. Nobody interrupted Nate when he was giving his marching orders. 

"I understand that you can break into my safe, but I'd prefer you didn't." She was as bedraggled as a woman could look: in a borrowed shirt, oversized men's jeans, with her hair exploding from a haphazard knot at her nape. But with her shoulders set and her spine straight over that soft, luscious butt, she held herself with a dignity that couldn't be ignored. "Can't I just open it for you?"

"Your presence puts my people at risk. No." Nate opened his mouth to keep talking.

But Eliot stepped forward. "Parker can get us in without being seen."

Parker nodded her head in the affirmative.

"And no one's touching either of them when I'm around."

Eliot felt Nate studying him, taking in his lowered head, determined eyes. And white-knuckled fists. "Fine," Nate declared. He had a way of saying it like it had always been his idea.

Eliot motioned for Parker and Sabrina to follow him out the door. He had to get out of there before he did something he'd regret.

\----------

Sabrina's apartment could have fit in a snow globe. Tucked beneath the eaves of an old four-story-tall Boston townhome a couple blocks from the bar, it was a one-room apartment with a tiny kitchen along one wall and her double bed along the other. The slanting ceiling above the bed was a hazard for anyone who might try to sit up. An ancient wooden desk, a clothes rack, and a rickety bistro table with a single chair was about all the rest the room could fit.

Unfortunately, the room looked like it had been shaken like a snow globe as well. Clothes, paper, cooking utensils, anything that wasn't nailed down littered the floor, tabletops, and bed. 

"Oh no," Sabrina gasped as she swung a leg over the window ledge and pulled herself in from the next-door roof. Parker had spotted men in black cars watching the townhome entrance and the alley that ran behind it, so she'd led them a block over snow-and-ice-covered rooftops as effortlessly as if she made the walk every day. Blindfolded. Sabrina handled the occasional slippery-and-tilted slate roof with grim-lipped concentration and subtle deep breathing. Eliot, who'd never let her out of hand's reach, had to swallow his praises. 

He'd gone in to her apartment first to make sure it was safe, so he got a front-row view of the astonishment and horror on her face as she came through the window. Dammit, he should have warned her. On the job, he forgot that tossed rooms and mayhem weren’t part of the average person’s life.

Her eyes bounced around the room like they didn’t know where to land. Drawers had been yanked out of the cabinets, pictures had been pulled from their frames, and her mattress was slashed, its springs popping out like exposed bones. 

Parker slipped through the window like an eel in her black leggings, turtleneck, slim coat and stocking cap. She looked around at the mess at her feet. “Amateurs,” she sneered. 

For the benefit of Nate, Sophie, and Hardison, who were listening on the tiny communication devices in their ears, she said, “Nate, they’ve tossed her place.” Eliot had turned his earpiece off. He couldn’t afford any distractions.

“Oh no,” Sabrina moaned once again, pushing back the hood of anorak and falling to her knees to pick up a broken frame. Pieces of jagged glass still surrounded the ripped picture inside.

“Careful,” Eliot said. He wanted to reach for her. He wanted to get her up off her knees. He wanted to stop that awful sound of distress sighing out of her. 

The ripped picture was a wedding photo. In it, Sabrina was swathed in mountains of white and looked like a child, like a teenaged bride. Her husband was in military uniform. Eliot could only see the man’s hat, one of his eyes, and half of his smile. The rest of the picture had been torn in two.

“Watch your hands,” he said gruffly, kneeling on one knee next to her. Gently, he took the frame from her, knocked the jagged glass onto a nearby plate, and handed it back.

“My mother has millions of these," Sabrina said, tears painting her voice as she propped the photo against her coat and ran her thumb over what was left of her husband's face. "I’m being silly."

“Stop saying that,” he urged her. “People are trying to tear apart your life. You get to be upset.” 

Parker kneeled on the other side of Sabrina. “Whenever I get upset, I like to think about what the people are going to look like after Eliot gets his hands on them.”

“That’s not helping, Parker,” he growled.

Sabrina gave a watery laugh. “Actually, that helps quite a bit.” She wiped under her eyes, took a deep breath, and hugged the picture to her chest. Then she laid it carefully on the floor. "Okay. To the safe.”

Eliot stood and offered her his hand to help her up. When she wrapped her hand around his, it was silky-soft but stronger than he’d imagined it would be. He could still feel a trace of the tears she’d wiped away. When she let go, he rubbed his thumb over his finger until her tears soaked into his skin.

She took two steps before she stopped with a “Bugger me!”

“What?” he asked.

“My computer.” She didn’t have tears in her voice now as she stared at the top of her ancient desk. “Those bloody wankers stole my computer! All they'll find on that is columns of data from the world's most boring job and the report I need for my next pay check!”

“We’ll get it back,” Eliot promised her, fists gripped. “We’ll get it all back.”

“Eliot’s good at that,” Parker reassured her.

Sabrina stomped to her tiny kitchen -- a couple of cabinets, a sink, a small refrigerator, and a stove top/oven combo the size of an Easy-Bake -- and squatted down to a bottom cabinet with its door torn off the hinges. Inside was a black sleek safe with a stainless steel handle and a single opening for Sabrina's index finger.

“A Man Safe 2018 with biometric entry and five active and passive relocking devices,” Parker breathed with a sound of awe. “Gimme.” 

Eliot nabbed her around the waist before she could shove Sabrina out of the way and work her thieving magic on it. “Down, Parker.” 

"But those were just released six months ago," Parker said, trying to squirm away from Eliot. "How can it be a safe from your father?"

Sabrina gave it a rueful smile before she stuck her finger onto the biometric pad. "My father arranged it with some of his secret services friends that I would always have the latest in safe security. So every couple of years are so, a few burly men show up to wrestle a new safe into my home. Danny thought it was such a weird gift. But he never knew my dad."

When the safe gave a soft beep to signal the acceptance of her fingerprint, Sabrina wrapped her hand around the sterling handle. “I came to America as soon as I was done with secondary school; my father was furious. He expected me to go to University, but I wanted to see the world first. We didn’t talk for a few months. And then he got sick. He sent me my first safe soon after. With the thousands these things cost, Danny always thought there was a better way for my dad to help me. But I think it's perfect; my dad is still trying to protect me, even when he isn’t around to do it himself.”

Like Sabrina, Eliot had decided to go his own way after high school to enter the military. And like her father, his father hadn't understood Eliot's choice. When that military had swallowed Eliot whole for a few years, when his father was left trying to comfort Eliot's mom and girlfriend, was making phone calls to their congress people and offering Eliot's name up during the Sunday sermon for his safe return, he was justifiably angry when Eliot finally showed up cold, hollow-eyed, and close-lipped about where he'd been and why he hadn't called. He'd banned Eliot from his home.

The thought that he might not get to make amends before he lost his dad sometimes startled Eliot awake in sweat-soaked sheets. 

Sabrina popped the handle, and the safe made a pneumatic hiss as it opened.

In it, Eliot could see a couple of files. A few small jewelry boxes -- one of them looked like a box for a ring. And a manila envelope. He wondered what secrets her father thought he was helping his honest, open, sunny daughter hide. 

She pulled out the manila envelope and -- with all of the guileless trust in the world -- handed it straight to Eliot. 

“You hang onto it," he said. "Pack a bag and then we’ll get out of here.”

Picking through the mess to find clothes, boots, underclothes, and beauty supplies stoked Eliot's simmering anger back to boil. Generally, he was just pissed off at the whole world, so it was nice having someone to aim it at. Whoever had done this to her was going to pay.

“One thing I noticed at the meeting,” Sabrina mused as they headed to the window. “We didn't discuss where I'd be staying.”

“Aren’t you staying with Eliot?” Parker asked as she opened the window.

“I…don’t know.”

“Eliot, don’t you want her to stay with you?”

He glowered at her. “Shut it, Parker.”

A big smile cleared away her real, oblivious-to-the-world confusion. “How weird was it that one day you're re drooling over him and the next day you’re sleeping at his house?” she grinned, nodding.

"Parker!" As she winced, Eliot realized Sophie and Hardison were probably also yelling at her. 

But Sabrina just grinned back. “Indeed, it's pretty weird.”

“Though the way Eliot’s been looking at you, I don’t think he minds you staying there…”

Like an inadvertent gift from the evil gods, Sabrina’s door came crashing in.

Four men dressed in suit pants and sport coats rushed into the room. The four from the cars outside. Eliot shoved the women behind him toward the window and then urged on the men with come-hither hands. “C’mon,” he said. They attacked at once, reaching for a smaller single target while Eliot had a variety of knees, noses, and guts to go for. When one tried to swoop around him to get to the women, Eliot caught him by the belt and pushed him back into his compatriots. He got a punch in the mouth for his efforts.

“Eliot!” he heard Sabrina shriek. He glanced behind him.

A guy was coming through the window. 

Eliot tried to turn, but he was socked in the kidney. But he knew everything was going to be okay. Because in a glance, he saw Sabrina plant her feet, set her fists, and then roundhouse kick the head of the man coming through the window. The man went down like a ton of bricks, his bulk draped over the window ledge and blocking the guy backing him up from coming in. Parker grabbed the window frame and shoved it down on his back. 

Watching Sabrina's determination, her calm, and the smooth sweep of what he knew were strong, silky legs gave Eliot the steam he needed. In seconds, his four guys were down. When Sabrina stopped to give one of the thugs a swift kick to the ribs as their trio was running out of the room, Eliot felt a spark of an emotion he hadn’t allowed himself to feel for a woman in a long, long time. 

\----------

That evening, Eliot and Sabrina were once again in Eliot’s apartment. Once again, they were freshly showered and once again they were both sitting on Eliot’s couch. Thankfully, this time Sabrina wore her own pajamas – a blue flannel nightshirt and bottoms – and they were about as sexually appealing as the oversized sweat suit had been.

Which meant they were VERY appealing. 

Eliot had made a mistake when he lit a fire in the small, ancient fireplace. But there had been a chill and it was the only thing he could think of to occupy his hands while she’d slowly brushed out her wet hair and stared at the manila envelope she’d placed on his coffee table. Now the light of the fire caught in the gold and bronze of her drying hair and created shadows over the envelope she'd pulled into her lap. In her stillness, with the glow dancing over her, she looked like some Celtic goddess statue.

God help him. He’d only known her for 24 hours and he was already coming up with bad poetry. 

After their run-in with the men, they’d returned to Nate’s place. That had been a mistake, too. They’d relayed the details that hadn’t been provided over the comms -- the guys were definitely ex-military, older meatheads for hire, and all attention did seem to be on the envelope – and Nate had wanted to open the envelope right then and there, in front of everyone. 

He'd wanted to dump the last possessions of Sabrina's husband, the things that were touching him when he died too soon and too young, out on the table for the Leverage crew to paw through.

Eliot had put his foot down. "She's opening this in private, and we're gonna give her a minute." Only Sophie’s intervention had saved Nate from a beating. When Nate had finally conceded, it was with a grin. "Fine. Open it at Eliot's place. It's the safest place for you to stay." His smile had grown as he stared at Eliot, knowing the special hell he'd just created for him.

A vulnerable, guileless, sweet-smiling woman who looked at him with hero-worship eyes would be living in his home. A heartbroken woman who saw in Eliot echoes of her husband would be eating at his table. A beautiful woman with a ripe mouth and a searing body and an open invitation in her eyes would be sleeping in his bed.

And Eliot couldn't touch her.

Seeing the lost look on her face as she toyed with a corner of the envelope, Eliot -- sitting not-too-close to her in his drawstring pants, his hands determinedly on his knees -- asked, "What can I do?"

She gave a sad huff of a laugh. “It seems abominably cowardly to ask it of you.” She tilted her head onto the sofa back and looked at him with mournful eyes. “Would you open it for me?”

He snagged it from her lap. “Sweetheart, I've spent the last 24 hours with you. The last thing I'd call you is a coward."

He held the envelope upright and felt its contents shift to the bottom. He gripped the top. “Ready?”

Still leaning her head on the sofa, like her head was too heavy to lift, Sabrina nodded.

The slow and steady rip of the envelope was loud in the fire-crackling room. Carefully, Eliot sat down the torn piece and then reached in and pulled out the first thing he touched. He watched Sabrina the whole time. She kept her eyes on him, too. 

He held a camouflage cap out to her. 

Sabrina reached for it with trembling fingers. With no self-consciousness at all, she brought it to her nose, closed her eyes, and smelled it. The she opened her eyes and gently laid it on the couch between them. “It just smells like a storage locker,” she said quietly. 

The essence that had been Danny Clarent no longer lived in his regulation Army cap.

Eliot began to slowly place item after item next to the cap, rather than forcing her to memorialize each one. He pulled out a well-used multi-tool, the “CLARENT” patch that had been attached to his fatigues, a key chain with a bullet transformed into a bottle opener, Clarent’s military ID, a packet of Fruit Stripe gum…

That finally got her to lift her head off the couch. She reached for the half-empty pack with a sad, soft smile. “Danny had just given up smoking for me. He needed to keep his mouth busy, but he hated the taste of sugarless gum.” She tapped the pack, and the red-, yellow-, and green-striped strips slid out. “He chewed on this atrociously sweet plastic instead. He said he was going to lose all of his teeth. I said I’d rather he be toothless than de—”

As she realized what she was saying, the smile slid from her face like raindrops. 

Hoping to distract her, Eliot pulled another item from the envelope. It was an army green watch with Army Times imprinted on the face. And on this inexpensive, giveaway watch, slid onto its canvas band as if an investigator had worried that this precious item might get lost in the shuffle, was a plain gold band. 

Sabrina covered her mouth with her hand when she saw her husband’s wedding band. 

Cautiously, Eliot unclasped the band, slid the ring off, and held it out to her with two fingers. It glowed in the firelight. 

“I almost want you to throw it in the bin,” Sabrina said, not taking it from him. “Isn’t that awful?” 

“No,” Eliot said. 

Tears coated her throaty voice. “I was just beginning to feel light again. And that ring … it looks so heavy.” But Sabrina’s capable hand reached for it. She rubbed it with her thumb and measured its weight in her palm as tears built in her eyes. “It’s funny how we invest this little circle of medal with so much mean—”

Her dark brows scrunched into a frown. She angled her palm so that the light could catch the inside of the ring. Then she snatched the ring between two fingers and held it close, the confusion as the studied the inside of the ring slowly changing into a look of shock.

She looked up at Eliot. “This isn’t his ring.”

“What?” Eliot said sharply.

She tossed it on the couch like it was poison, her eyes growing wide. “That isn’t his ring.” Wildness tinged her voice. “They gave me the wrong ring!”

Eliot picked up the ring and studied the inside. Etched in italics was _“D + S The World Seems to Shine.”_

“Our weddings bands don’t say _The World Seems to Shine_.” Confusion and tears warred in her voice. “They say _Nowhere without you_.” 

“And the initials?”

“Yes, those are correct but…” She let out a soft sob. “God, I feel like I’m losing my mind.”

The saying had changed but the initials were the same. If someone had been studying these items for two years, looking for a clue in them, they would have never been able to find it in the ring engraving. Not without Sabrina’s help. 

Eliot pushed off the couch and went down on a knee in front of her, placing the ring carefully on the coffee table. She stared at him as she hovered on the edge of misery. “Sabrina, you found what the people have been looking for. I think it’s a message from your husband that only you can understand. He must have been involved in something.”

“No!” Sabrina immediately protested. He could see her mind racing. “Why wouldn’t he just tell me? Why would he get involved in anything that would jeopardize his life? You live in this world but it doesn’t make sense in mine. It doesn’t –”

Bewildered and overwhelmed, Sabrina dropped her face into her hands and began to weep, painful gasps of it coming from her. The flood of tears broke the Eliot's dam, and he did the one thing he promised himself he wouldn't do: he touched her. He sat on the couch, pulled her onto his lap, and held her against him, wrapping his arms around her to keep her from falling apart.

She curled an arm around his shoulder and pressed her face into his neck. He could feel the hot flow of her tears and the hoarse sobs of her breath against his skin; her fingers locked around his nape like she was afraid she'd be carried off if she let go. She was soft, trembling heat wrapped in blue flannel in his arms, and he squeezed her close, burying his face into her jasmine-spiced hair to get closer to her core where her pain rocked her.

"God, Eliot," she sobbed, so buried in his neck that her teeth scraped the sensitive skin. It surprised him, made his fingertips convulse into her pajamas and his body stiffen. Fuck. He hoped she hadn't noticed. 

But, still crying, Sabrina purposefully nipped at him. Then she soothed the bite with a soft lick of her tongue. 

"Sabrina," he rumbled, half want, half denial, as his hand hooked into her elbow to pull her away from him.

"Please Eliot," she begged, her mouth at his ear, her throaty accent rich with tears and heartbreak. "Just for a moment. Help me forget for just a moment." She kissed his earlobe like she couldn't help herself while she was there.

Eliot turned his head to look down at her, half-reclining in his arms. Her dark eyes showed bottomless sadness and her nose was red. Tracks of her tears marred that fine skin. Eliot's hand stroked up from her elbow into her hair, around her smooth neck. His thumb rubbed at her tears.

"Just for a second, sweetheart," he said, before pulling her up to him, knocking his hair out of their way and tasting her lips in a soft, sweet kiss. Both of her thin strong arms enfolded his neck and held him close.

He could tell himself tomorrow that he did this for her. He could tell himself that after her two years of misery, with only more to come, she deserved a bit of pleasure, a bit of forgetfulness. But as he licked into her mouth and got his first taste of her sugarcube tongue, he knew hers would be a taste that he would never forget. 

He didn't want to push too far with her but if he only had a second...he got a grip of her hair and angled her head, wanting to try out more of her mouth. Right there, her short nails dug into his neck when he licked her right there. Her lips were fucking delicious, soft and avid and he explored every centimeter of their surface, in and out with her mouth until she was moaning. Moaning not crying. 

He began to pull back. "Sabrina..."

Without letting go of his neck, she sat up, moved her legs so she was straddling him, and then pressed herself -- from tight inner thigh to perfect peach breasts -- against the wall that was Eliot. He grunted as she bit at his lip and then, dominant, swept her tongue inside his mouth.

He clawed at the air like he was falling as she kissed him. Jesus, her tongue. She was slick and agile and fucking, fucking enthusiastic. He felt ... Christ, he never wanted to be the object of someone's crush again. He didn't think he could survive it.

He reached for her waist -- this had to stop -- but paused when he felt the slide of flannel over her tight, warm waist and stomach. Goddamn, she felt good. His hands slid down to her hips, just to feel her muscles against his palm before he let go. 

But when she rolled those hips, when she pressed the hot flannel-covered center of her against his cock, hard and obvious in his cotton pants, he didn't know if she'd done that on her own or if his battle-scarred hands had pressed for the motion. For a blind moment, he didn't fucking care. His hands slid down, gloried over her perfect lush ass and helped her ride as she pulsed again, twice, three times against him. He angled up his hips and let her stroke it, felt for himself the folds and the softness and the warmth of the place where she would take him inside. 

Eliot groaned into her mouth at the thought.

He grabbed her around the waist, gripped her neck, and then flipped them both over so that she was against the couch. She gasped, releasing his mouth. Freed of her heavenly weight, he peeled himself off of her, turned his back, and stalked across the room. He ran his hands through his hair and then gripped the brick mantel of the fireplace. The rough edges cut into his skin with a distracting sting.

Behind him, above the crackle of the fire, he could hear her breathless gasps. His blood screamed.

“For too many reasons, I can’t,” he said gruffly, still gripping the mantel. Because she was innocent. Because he had sinned. Because she was light, when all he had was darkness. Because she’d want more than pleasure, when it was all he knew how to give. “But if I took you tonight, when you’re hurting, I wouldn’t be able to look at myself in the morning.”

Her voice held such sweet dignity when she replied. “Danny died two years ago, Eliot,” she said. “You’re the first man I’ve wanted since he passed.”

Those words did nothing to comfort him. He rested his chin on his shoulder. “Sweetheart, you need to think about why that is.”

“What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath, looked down at his bare feet on the hardwood floor. He didn’t want to point out the obvious, didn’t want her to stop looking at him with that open, easy admiration. But it was time. “How many soldiers have you been around since Danny died?”

She was quiet. Eliot let his hands drops from the mantel and slowly turned around, expecting to see confusion or dawning realization on her face. What he didn’t expect was a growing, narrow-eyed anger. 

Her hair where he’d gripped it was wild and her lips were stung red from their kisses. “You believe the only reason I’m attracted to you is because I have a soldier fetish?”

Eliot resisted the urge to take a step back from her anger. That would have landed him in the fire. It appeared he was already there. “I didn’t say fetish. But do you have a type? Yeah, I think you do.” He was gonna show her that a spade was a spade, dammit.

“How… how dare you?” The heat of the room and her anger was causing a flush up her long, slender neck. “You know nothing about me!”

“I know your dad was a spy.” He did the naming on his fingers. “I know you married an American soldier a year after he died. And I know the first man you’ve had a crush since then is ex-military.”

“A crush?! I am not a child!”

“But you’re innocent.” Couldn’t she understand that he was just trying to protect her? “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve done. I’m not some prince in shining armor like your husband and your dad. I’m not going to save you from the dragon. I AM the dragon.”

She abruptly stood. “What you are, Eliot Spencer, is an idiot,” she said definitively. 

She smoothed down her pajamas. “You, sir, caught my eye because you are beautiful. You are my walking, talking fantasy incarnate with long hair and strong hands and an excellent dart game. You kept my eye because you are kind and loyal and the tiniest bit mean. And you are nothing like my husband. He laughed more than you do and he wasn’t nearly as smart as you and he was going to shed himself of the military the instant he figured what he wanted to do next. There was nothing of the career soldier in him, and the only thing my father would have liked about him was that he loved me deeply. But that man is dead. While I am very much alive. I am alive and strong and knowledgeable and none of the childish innocent you accuse me of being. And I am also – apparently – in need of a new man to desire.”

With that kick in the balls, she headed to his hallway. “Thank you for the use your bedroom,” she called behind her. “I will make other arrangements tomorrow.”

Lead-footed in front of the fire, Eliot watched her go. Watched her proud back and swaying ass disappear down the dark hall and into his room, where his door closed with a slam. 

“Good,” he thought. Good, she was going. He got exactly what he wanted.

Good.

\----------


	3. Don't Let It In With No Intention To Keep It

The next day, the Leverage team surrounded Sabrina, who sat at the console, and stared squint-eyed up at the screens. Hardison had aimed a camera at the inside of the wedding band, and the inscription -- _D + S The World Seems to Shine_ \-- loomed large on the monitors.

"It's a lovely sentiment," Sophie said, sitting to Sabrina's right. She tilted her head at the screen. "Are you certain it doesn't trigger any memories? Perhaps the two of you visited a well-luminated site. Or maybe a jewelry store?"

Parker, usually perky at the idea of jewels, just sat to the left of Sabrina doing her bizarre, over-extended stretches and humming a song in her off-key voice. Parker was always off-key.

Sabrina shook her head. "I don't know. Nothing comes to mind." She'd braided her hair into two plaits, one hanging over each shoulder of her oversized, caramel-colored sweater. "I still can't believe he went this far to send me a message. I loved him but -- I never needed him to be clever. I don't know why he didn't just tell me."

Nate paced behind Sabrina. "It's a measure of how scared he was," he said, continuing to walk and stare at the screen. "Extreme situations push us to our extremes. He was trying to protect you, and he got creative to do it."

The glass in Nate's hand empty of everything but ice was a measure of how much he was loving this, Eliot thought as he glared at the man. Now that the mystery had gotten interesting, Nate could manage to be nice to Sabrina. Sometimes Eliot wondered who the target was in Nate's eye -- the bad guy? Or the victim? Eliot resented how Nate hovered around her, got to look at her multi-colored braid and get a whiff of her sweet-and-spice scent, while he was back here, leaning against the back wall with his arms crossed. He knew Sabrina preferred him to be away from her.

She'd emerged from his room that morning with her large duffel bag already packed. When he'd tried to say something -- he wasn't even sure what was going to come out of his mouth -- she'd stopped him with a resigned, "Don't."

"Thank you for everything you've done and for allowing me to stay here. But please..." She wouldn't look at him. "Just don’t."

Eliot's bitter thoughts were interrupted when Nate said, "Hardison, show them what you found out."

Hardison pointed his remote at the monitors and shuffled the image of the wedding band to the left while a doughy-jawed, middle-aged man in a captain's uniform appeared on the right. Parker continued to hum and stretch as if nothing else was going on.

"That's Danny's captain," Sabrina said. "Captain Hugh McCormick."

"Right," Hardison said, pointing at her. "So, I wasn't able to find any other records about the investigation. They're either gone or the people in charge were smart enough to make sure they never existed. But this dude, Danny's commander -- he's a bad dude."

"What?!" Sabrina said. This was news to her.

"Six months ago, he was dishonorably discharged for an unprovoked attack on a private." Some papers documenting the incident and a photo of a young man in a hospital bed came up on the screen. "The guy was in the hospital for a couple of weeks, internal injuries, broken jaw. The captain was dishonorably discharged without a trial--"

"Which means somebody didn't want an investigation," Eliot said from the back of the room.

"Right," Hardison said. "Now, according to Internet chatter, the private was going to report the Captain McCormick for something big -- but the captain caught him first and had a couple of his men try to 'convince' the private to keep quiet. Somebody walked in on them, there was a fight...

"And they race to get rid of him and shut the rumors down," Eliot said, walking toward the console to get a better look at the documents.

Hardison nodded. "From what I can tell, McCormick went without a fight." 

"Because he's still hiding something," Nate said. "Which leads us back to you." He looked down at Sabrina in her seat. "Getting anything yet?"

Looking miserable, Sabrina dropped her hands in her lap. "I'm sorry..."

Sophie pinched the bridge of her nose. "We all might be able to concentrate better if Parker would STOP HUMMING."

"What?" Parker said, startled silent with her leg stretched behind her neck. "I've got a song stuck in my head." She started humming it again.

"Girl, at least find a note!" Hardison said.

"Then help me figure it out!" Parker lowered her leg to twist her arms behind her and began humming again. Louder.

Nate shook his head. "No, it doesn't go like that, it goes..." He knocked his empty glass against his forehead as he paced. "Yeah, it goes..." Nate's humming was no better than Parker's.

Eliot slowly closed his eyes and coached himself to deep breathe. What Sabrina must be thinking. Her life was shaken upside down and her saviors were acting like the Keystone Cops. 

"That's not it," Eliot growled, opening his eyes. "It goes..." And from his mouth came a begrudging -- but at least, in tune...

 _When a moon_  
_hits your eye_  
_like a big pizza pie_  
_That's amoré_

"It's 'That's Amoré.' That old Dean Martin song."

"That's right!" Parker said.

"That is right," Sabrina exclaimed. Eliot turned to look at her and, for the first time since he'd spoken to her 48 hours ago, saw joy lift her lips and brighten her dark eyes. "You figured it out!"

She began to sing. That throaty voice was sweet and true and tempting. 

_When a moon_  
_hits your eye_  
_like a big pizza pie_  
_That's amoré_  
_When THE WORLD SEEMS TO SHINE_  
_like you've had too much wine_  
_That's amoré_

"That's the message Danny was trying to give me," she exclaimed, squeezing her fists together. "That song. It was playing at a horrendous pizza place when Danny proposed. He hadn't planned the event very well, and we spent the whole evening giggling about how silly it was. I had forgotten that line." 

"Where's the pizza place?" Sophie asked.

"It's here. We met here in Boston. That's why I returned after he died." Suddenly, Sabrina covered her mouth. "Oh good Lord, you clever man."

"What?" Hardison asked. Eliot knew the blood of the rest of the Leverage crew was pumping just like his. The chase was on.

"We tried to return to the pizza place once, to celebrate an anniversary. It was closed." She lowered her hands and took in all of them. "In its place was a UPS store."

Parker whistled. "I guess I'll be breaking into 200 boxes."

"I don't think so," Sabrina said, grinning. She looked so thrilled to be finally unlocking a piece of the puzzle. "We always used our anniversary as a password. January 15."

Nate paced the room with renewed energy. “Eliot, you and Sabrina go get what’s in box 115. You can get into a post office box, right?”

“Sir…” Sabrina stood up. Yeah, Eliot could get into a post office box. Whether he could get Sabrina back into his Mustang was another thing entirely.

"Parker, we need you to break into the accountant's ex-wife's house. Sophie found intel that his wife may have been helping him before he went into hiding. See if you can find anything that will give us his location."

"Mr. Ford --"

“Hardison, find everything you can on McCormick. Find out where he is now, who he’s working with, and what he was doing when Clarent was on base. Mainly I want to know…”

Only almost tripping over the duffle bag that Sabrina had tucked beside an armchair stopped Nate's commandant routine. He looked down at his feet. “What’s this?” he barked.

Standing tall, engulfed in her soft sweater that dripped down to the chocolate leggings covering her thighs, Sabrina said, “I’ll be moving to a hotel this afternoon.”

Eliot felt the eyes of Parker, Hardison, and Sophie swing onto him. He slipped his hand into his jeans pocket and clenched his jaw.

“You’re only staying at a hotel if you want to be kidnapped again,” Nate said definitively as he kicked the bag out of his way and kept pacing. “What’s wrong with Eliot’s place?”

Jesus Christ. That asshole.

Sabrina turned to look at the other team members. “Well then, perhaps I could stay with one of you? I’d be happy to pay you…” It was painful to watch Sabrina tugging on the cuffs of her sweater and trying to keep her head up as she waited for one of them to reply. Hardison made himself busy on his keyboard; Parker studied the pipes that ran along the ceiling of Nate’s modern-retro apartment. Sophie gave a sympathetic – but unyielding – smile.

Eliot didn’t even know where they lived. No matter how close their crew had gotten, the members of Leverage Inc. still had their secrets. Allowing a stranger into their homes was a privilege they weren’t going to allow without a knife-and-knuckle fight. Not when that stranger already had a perfectly good hideaway. 

Between gritted teeth, Eliot said, “We’ll figure it out.” When Sabrina’s round chin rose and she shot dark daggers at him, he stalked over to her and dragged her to the kitchen area. Everyone but Nate watched with their jaws dropped open. Let ‘em. 

“You’re not going to find any welcome from them,” Eliot growled, looking down at her. “And Nate’s right; you’re not safe in a hotel.” When Sabrina opened her mouth to object, he cut her off. “Keeping you safe is my JOB. It’s the only reason I’m useful on this team. I’ll keep you safe. We’ll stop these guys from chasing you. And then you’ll never have to see me again.”

Eliot liked to think her eyes had to blink a couple of extra times before she glanced away from him, before she considered her alternatives, and then looked back at him with a stubborn “Fine” spit from between those soft, wide lips. Liked to think that the idea -- never laying eyes on each other after this was through -- was as hard for her as it was for him, even though it was what was best. Best for her. Best for him.

He drove her in silence to the pizza place-cum-UPS store. Breaking into the box was a matter of seconds in the empty shop while Sabrina distracted the clerk with chatter about shipping rates. He pulled out a folded-over envelope marked with Sabrina's name and a postmark dated 3 days before Danny Clarent died. 

The man had waited over 2 years and 3 days to tell his wife his secrets.

Back in the car, Sabrina pulled a file folder of documents and a messily scrawled note out of the envelope. She handed the file folder to Eliot. He kept his eyes on her as she read the note; he wanted to be here for her, Hardison and Nate could tackle whatever mystery they'd uncovered. But when she turned her head to look out the window and crumbled the note in her palm, Eliot started the rumbling engine of his Mustang and headed back to Nate's. His own words and actions had erased his power to offer her a shoulder.

It was weapons, Hardison discovered when he opened the folder and projected the documents on the screens. Of course it was weapons. A whole array of them that Captain Hugh McCormick had been ordering and routing through several bases before stockpiling them in a deserted barrack in the woods of the South Carolina army base and then re-routing through several bases until they ended up in the hands of anti-government extremists. Extremists with deep pockets. It appeared that Clarent had begun just taking orders. But soon, Sabrina explained in a whisper, he and several of his buddies had fallen under the captain's magnetic spell. They'd believed they were doing what was best for their country.

"He wrote that it was a dinner conversation with me that woke him up," Sabrina said in a fractured voice, worrying a tissue Sophie had given her. "We were talking about the IRA, the work my father did to stop them. My father had been philosophically supportive of the fighters, of their desire to free Ireland from Britain's rule. But the murder of innocents, that was never the way to bring about change." She tore the tissue apart. "My blather over a plate of mediocre lasagna got Danny killed."

Eliot took her home then, carrying her duffel bag over his shoulder and placing it back in his room without comment. 

He was glad she came out of his room to eat the chicken and dumplings he'd made her, to sip the two-fingers worth of bourbon he'd left by her plate. He was glad she joined him on his lumpy velvet couch -- on the opposite end of the couch -- to watch a stupid buddy cop movie. She even gave a couple quiet huffs of laughter. When the movie was over she refilled her glass, asked him if she could help clean the kitchen, and thanked him without looking at him when he said no. After his bedroom door closed behind her, Eliot couldn't help himself -- he leaned over and touched the cushion where she'd sat. It was still warm from her body.

They settled into a routine over the next three days. After a quiet breakfast -- she actually got a jump on him the next morning and made eggs and bacon for him -- they'd head over to Nate's apartment where the Leverage team split its time looking for Lorien Downey, the accountant who had evidence that mob bosses were using local casino hotels to launder drug money, and preparing for their con on the Fort Jackson base in South Carolina. McCormick was still a powerful man on the base, somehow managing to circumvent the rules to work as a "consultant." Only by publicly revealing McCormick's elaborate plan could they stop the illegal selling of arms, get justice for Danny, and make sure that none of McCormick's buyers came looking for Sabrina. Nate -- who usually wouldn't let a client anywhere near a con -- was impressed enough with Sabrina's understanding of military procedure and her memory of the base to allow her to pitch in. She joked with Parker, oohed and aahed over Hardison's technological prowess, and talked ad nauseam about "good ol' England" with Sophie.

Watching the warmth that everyone else got from her was a little like torture for Eliot. Alone with him, when she was in his car, at his dinner table, or standing next to him to dry the dishes, she was restrained, polite, and the perfect house guest. But all the light of her -- the smiles and flirting and curiosity and admiration -- had drained away. It was like standing next to cold and ashy logs that had been giving off fire the night before. She wasn't going to forget his hurtful yet necessary treatment of her while, every day, his admiration for her grew. 

She was smart, but also savvy, a combination he didn't find in very many people. She had a quick sense of humor, and she used it to brighten the workroom every time they were at Nate's place. She could concentrate -- really focus -- and watching her brain take in and tweak Nate's plan was as much of a turn on as watching her body learn new self-defense moves. Under the guise of also teaching Sophie and Parker, he was making sure she knew all the ways to protect herself. When she blocked one of his punches and flipped him to the mat, he invented a tweaked shoulder so he could take a break. And get her away from his erection.

He ached to go to South Carolina and get this con over with as much as he dreaded setting foot on the plane.

\----------

Ultimately, it was a bowl of clam chowder that destroyed his gritted-teeth resolve.

They’d been so careful. The Leverage team’s security cameras caught the thugs periodically watching the place. The thugs had even come to the bar and asked people if they knew a long-brown haired guy, knew where to find him. The faithful employees and regulars all said no. Eliot and Sabrina always used an alleyway entrance through the basement to get to Nate’s apartment.

But Sabrina and Eliot were out late one night, picking up the uniforms, medals and badges from a discreet army supply shop in Cambridge to impersonate a four-star general and his entourage, when Sabrina’s stomach gave a rumble that nearly shattered the windows of his Mustang. 

“Hungry?” he dead-panned as he drove on the snow-covered cobblestone streets near America’s Ivys.

When he glanced over and saw her catching her grin with her teeth, her first almost-smile for him in a week, he didn’t think when she suggested a dive bar with great clam chowder in Harvard Square. He didn’t pause to turn the wheel and head them to a place that made her eyes glow like that.

The bar wasn’t much to look at, long and narrow with tile and mirrors covering one wall, a bar and neon signs covering the other. It was dark and crowded on a Tuesday night, and the Misfits wailed from the jukebox. But the chowder…

“This is damn fine chowder,” he said over the music, spooning another hit of creamy broth with unevenly chopped potatoes and a big nugget of clam into his mouth. They were sitting at a tiny two-top against the wall. 

“It is delicious but,” she put down her spoon and wiped at the corner of her mouth with the back of her hand. “I think the last week has ruined me.”

When Eliot squinted at her, she looked into her beer. “I haven’t properly thanked you for all of the wonderful meals you’ve made for me.” She raised her eyes to him like it took a will of purpose to do it. “Thank you. Your kindness and generosity have far exceeded what any person should be asked to give.”

“Sabrina—”

“Where did you learn to cook?” Her small, plastic smile interrupted anything he wanted to say. Fine.

“A guy taught me,” Eliot said, taking a sip of his beer. “I knew how to use a knife one way. He taught me another.”

He’d just told her nothing and everything, more than he’d told anyone about Toby and how the man had saved Eliot’s soul with lessons on mincing and sautéing and blanching when Eliot had feared his soul was unredeemable. He loved the way she took his words in, without judgment or demand, but with a steady look that seemed to see all of Eliot, the good and the bad.

Sabrina raised her beer. “A toast to that guy. My spoiled palate and expanding waistline thank him.”

He’d like to introduce Sabrina to Toby, Eliot thought as he raised his glass and clinked it against hers. Toby would be thrilled that Eliot had someone like her, with her sweetness and light, in his life. 

But as he took a long drink, he had to remind himself that her sweetness and light was exactly why that introduction wasn’t going to happen. 

He set his beer back down. "I'm sorry about the other night."

Her eyes were on her glass. "You're sorry you touched me?" 

"No." He pushed his hair out of his face as he gained her full attention. "I'm sorry for confusing you; for pulling you close then pushing you away. And I'm sorry I dismissed what you wanted as something...simple. I'm honored that you admired me."

"Admire," she said softly. "Present tense."

He refused to get caught up in the dark pools of her eyes. "It doesn't change anything, Sabrina. I'm not the guy. Believe me, I wish I was."

"But Eliot--"

Eliot was distracted from her useless protest by that sixth sense honed while walking through bazaars in full tactical and feeling the tickle of a sniper's crosshairs. He looked up -- and saw a man at the end of the bar, near the door, quickly look away. A man with beefy shoulders and a crew cut that he'd last seen in Sabrina's apartment. The two guys at a table right next to the door didn't even bother to shift their eyes when Eliot scanned them.

"How often do you come here?" Eliot said in a low voice, glancing toward the back exit. Fuck. Two guys had taken post there as well. One of them still sported black eyes from the beating Eliot had given him in the van.

Sabrina shrugged, mystified. "I don't know. Two to three times a week."

Eliot smiled and leaned across the table to take Sabrina's beer-chilled hand in his. "Don't look around. Don't react." He squeezed her hand when she tried to do both. "They've been watching this place. They're here. No, nope. Smile. Don't look shocked."

Sabrina's smile was a grimaced baring of teeth. "I'm so sorry. I didn't think."

This wasn't her fault. This was his. Jesus, after a week of self-denial he'd ended up in the exact same place he'd fought to avoid -- distracted, unthinking, leading her into danger. At least if he'd followed her lead he could have spent the last week licking, fingering, and fucking her into enough orgasms to balance out the next few moments of chaos, panic, and terror she was going to experience.

He let his smile become real. "Sweetheart, I'd kick any number of asses to watch you tuck into that bowl of chowder the way you did. The way you moan when you like something..."

There, now she was ready. Relaxed. Eyes a little foggy.

"Do what I say," he told her. 

Then he leapt up, grabbed a tattooed kid at the bar who looked like he could have bench-pressed Eliot, and popped him in the chin. "Man, you better stop eyeing my girl!" he yelled, red-faced and wild-eyed.

"What the fuck, dude!" the kid roared as his three equally large friends launched themselves at Eliot. Through their fists and shoulders, Eliot could see the men coming toward them.

"Get over the bar!" he yelled at Sabrina. That glorious woman. Wide-eyed and trembling, she did it -- popped up onto a bar stool and clambered over the bar to the other side. The bartender was busy calling the police.

Eliot blocked a shot from the kid and then, with just enough force to knock the breath out of him, punched him in the sternum. The boy really had been eye-fucking Sabrina. But Eliot had to thank him; the young guys' inexperienced, drunken melee created a human plug in the middle of the narrow bar, keeping him and Sabrina safe from the thugs until they could slip out the swinging door behind the bar that led to the kitchen. Eliot just needed to unwrap a tattooed arm from his throat and then he could leap over...

The black door pushed open from the kitchen side and a meaty hand grabbed Sabrina's arm and wrenched her through it. She didn't even get a chance to scream.

And goddammit, wasn't that the moment when one of the kids got in a lucky shot, really rung Eliot's bell. Clearing the stars from his head and breathing through his teeth, Eliot had to stop himself from wrapping his fists around the kid’s throat and crushing his larynx. He just had to get to Sabrina.

Two separate pairs of hands grabbed his arms, wrenched them behind him, and then slammed his face into the metal brass pole than ran the length of the bar. White-hot pain exploded across the bridge of his nose. 

"We got it from here, boys," he heard a man say from behind him. From the bleary corner of his eye, he saw the fists draw back, so the flash of a fake police badge. Saw a gun swing in a shoulder holster. "Someone will be around to take your statements."

His bad shoulder howled as the men wrenched him up and then hustled him out the back entrance with his arms still twisted high behind him. 

In the dark alleyway, he was shoved face first against the brick wall. "How's your nose feeling?" a thick Boston voice said near his ear. "Slamming you into that pole made mine feel better." 

Eliot's clever comeback went quiet when he felt the hard kiss of a gun silencer press into his hair. 

"I'm getting real sick of this shit," the man muttered.

"Me too," said the other guy. "The cops are coming."

"I know. She better..."

The "she" they were referring to let out a shriek that echoed over Eliot's head. He looked up, ignoring the threat of the silencer...and saw a jean-covered leg and a snowboot dangling five stories above him. 

"You motherfuckers," Eliot growled. He ignored the scream in his shoulders when he slumped lower and kicked his foot back, dismantling a knee. The man howled as the gun clattered to the ground. 

When Eliot whirled around, the second man raised his hands and stepped back. "Fuck it. I quit."

"Then get your friend and start running," Eliot threatened as he backed up in the alley, keeping his eye on the departing men as he headed to the fire escape that ran up the outside of the building. As he pulled down the ladder and started up it, he saw the guys had cleared the alley. That meant there were three men up on the roof. Three men threatening Sabrina.

He breathed in biting winter air as he climbed the stairs as quietly as rusted iron and old bolts would allow, fighting to keep himself centered instead of thinking about what they were doing to her. About how afraid she must have been. About how he'd let her down.

But when he reached the top of the stairs and peeked over the roof edge, throat-closing panic threatened to decimate the calm he needed. They were hanging her entirely over the roof. Two of the guys watched while the third one -- thank God it was the biggest guy -- had her under her armpits and was just holding her out there as her snowboots swung out over black space and her hands clawed to get a grip into his biceps and stark terror destroyed her beautiful face. 

"Please, I don't know..." she wept and begged. They'd made her beg. His beautiful, brave woman. They made her weep.

The man shook her and she shrieked again. "Just tell us where the documents are and then I'll put you down." 

"You're going to put her down right now," Eliot said, approaching them on the snow-covered roof as the two men whirled around. Normally, he didn't like guns. But he'd never been happier to have the killing tool that he'd swept up in the alley in his hands. He stayed back enough to keep the death of any one of them a matter of inches and seconds. And they knew it, too, could hear the sharpshooter in his voice, see him in his eyes.

"Put the gun away or I'll drop her," the big man threatened. Eliot growled when he saw the man's arms tremble.

"Drop her and I'll drop you. I'll kill those two fast. But you and I, we'll be up here for awhile."

The big man's eyes met Sabrina's as if he was checking her value, wondering if she was worth dying over. Whatever he saw there... he swung her back onto the roof and put her on her feet. She was running to him before she even stopped swaying. 

"Come here, sweetheart," Eliot murmured, arm wide as she launched herself into him, as she cried and shuddered as he held her against him, his eyes and the black hole of the silencer never leaving the men. The gun's trigger felt as sensuous as her waist against his finger; he stroked it and licked his lips at thought of annihilating them. Erasing from the earth the men who scared her.

"Your buddies downstairs quit," Eliot said, his grip on her, her grip on him the only thing keeping him from pulling the trigger and losing his mind. "Follow in their footsteps. If I see you again, I’ll kill you."

It was a chore getting them backed up into the roof entrance of the interior stairwell, where they locked the door, and down the stairs and out the apartment-entrance side of the building and down the street to Eliot's car. The chore wasn't caused by the thugs or the police parked outside or Sabrina's death grip on his neck. It was caused by Eliot, by his all-consuming urge to return to that roof and kill. He felt like a recovering addict who'd accidentally taken a sip. Every step he took away from the thugs, he fought the craving to get back to them, to finish the job.

They’d almost taken her away from him. 

He realized it when he was in the car with the doors locked and the heater blasting, his foot on the ignition to pull away from the curb. They almost extinguished her light. Eliot started to shake.

"Cold?" Sabrina asked, concern in her voice as she thumbed the blower higher.

"Yeah," Eliot replied. All that sweet, soft, pillowy concern would have been gone. He focused on the road, the wheel, the press of his foot on gas and brake as he shook.

As Boston's city lights streamed by, she inhaled to speak.

Eliot tried to stall her. "Quiet." 

"I'm so sorry..."

"I'm not...angry." He had to press his lips together to keep his teeth from chattering. "I need a minute."

"Yes."

All of it, her kindness and her consideration and her humor and that quick smile and her arousing voice -- it all would have been gone. Destroyed on the cobblestones of an alley that smelled like vomit and fried food. 

His physical shock wound down on the ride home. But not the cataclysm happening in his mind. 

They were quiet in the elevator ride up to his apartment, and he opened the door and ushered her inside without a sound. Once the door was closed and locked behind her, he made a beeline for his whiskey. He did a quick shot, but the burn of Jack Daniels did nothing to calm the violence in his head. So he poured more.

"Please, Eliot." That throaty, delicate voice sounded on the edge of tears again as she stood in the middle of his living room. "Please let me apologize for..."

"They almost killed you." He turned toward her, looking down at the whiskey in his glass.

"I know and I was foolish for..."

"They almost took you away from me."

Her voice stopped in her throat with soft huff.

He raised the glass and slowly emptied it, closed his eyes as the warmth traced down him. It was nothing compared to the burn of her. 

He opened his eyes and looked at her, dropped the glass with a thump to the carpet. "You would have disappeared on me and I would have never known your taste."

Her eyes were huge, her mouth soft and open. 

He began to stalk toward her. "You would have been gone..." He reached her and grabbed her around the waist, got a hand underneath her braid to pull her to him, to shift her head so he could get every word into her ear. "And all I would have were regrets and sorrow and a mouth that never got to know your sweetness."

He bit her neck, unjustly angry with her. Angry that she'd almost left him broken and in the dark. She moaned as he did it. 

"I want it now," he growled into the delicate hollow between her shoulder and her neck. "Give it to me now." 

Her oversized jeans made it a matter of a moment to slip his hand into the waistband, down her flat tummy and into her panties. He turned her head and kissed her, buried his tongue in her mouth as he stroked his finger into her. Jesus. She was hot and soft. So soft. Soft thighs and soft hair and soft, hot pussy. Oh God, and wet. He felt her drip onto his palm. 

Turning his hand, he got a grip on her panties, her jeans… he wrenched the clothes separating her from him down to her snow boots. Her phone – an old Blackberry he’d never noticed before – clattered onto the floor. Then he was on his knees, tonguing into her soft hair as he ripped her out of her boots and jeans. The hints of her salt, her throaty gasps, her trembling hands on his shoulders, made him crazy. Crazed to see her, know her, taste her. 

When her legs were naked, he separated her lips with his thumbs. He traced her with his eyes as he massaged plump flesh and soft hair, memorized her rose pink secret skin, her tight gleaming clit, her shine, her trembling. Sabrina’s smell was of daisies and earth and ocean.

“Oh fuck,” he groaned, staring at this beautiful part of Sabrina. “Give it to me.”

Stooping down on both knees, he surrounded her with his mouth, wanting a deep rich taste of what he thought he’d never have, stroking his mouth up her pink wetness to her clit, to her clit that he laved with a wet tongue, tasting with muscle and moisture, hearing her cry out and her hand grip into his hair. Sucking, sucking, he ran his hands up the back of her thighs and – fuck – how did he forget about her ass? That fantastic ass was now in his hands and she teetered, widened her stance as he squeezed, and he shivered at the pink now to available him, all that beautiful wet place open for his hungry lips and tongue and teeth. He stooped even lower and pushed his tongue into her pulsing, tight hole. 

More of her weight fell into his hands as she cried out and those strong legs went weak. 

“Sweetness,” Eliot chuckled roughly, lowering her to the floor and turning her over onto her knees, propping her naked ass high into the air for him. “Sweetness,” he said again, kissing that plump, heart-shaped behind, watching gooseflesh and pink heat rise up on the gorgeous flesh. Her pussy lips were displayed for him and he leaned in to give a kiss, then pushed her thighs apart so he could get a deeper taste. “Sweetness, like caramel…and honey…and sea salt.” Eliot stroked and fondled her with his tongue between words, his hands scratching and squeezing her ass.

“Good lord, Eliot,” Sabrina whimpered from where her head was on the floor, her arms stretched out like sacrifice. Her panting had little hitches in it, like she was forgetting how to breathe. “Your hair.”

He hadn’t realized his hair had been sliding across the sensitive skin of her ass as he tongued her. But now that he did…he propped himself up on his knees, spread her pussy with one hand, and began to stroke her with the other. When he leaned over and dragged his long brown hair over the skin of her ass, he pushed his middle finger into her as deep as it could reach.

Her cry shot around the room. He hoped the assholes who tried to take her from him heard it. He hoped the whole world heard it.

He pumped his finger slow as he turned his head, letting his hair sweep back and forth over her, loving the roll and thrust of her hips as she tried to feel it all, have it all. He turned his hand, oriented himself on her body, and then strummed that…one…spot.

“Eliot,” her hum of his name was desperate, almost guttural, as she arched her back and pushed her hips up to him. “Oh God…Eliot.”

His cock could have pounded through steel to get to her. He pulled his finger out.

“Not yet, sweetness,” he growled, answering her cry of disappointment, gently pushing her to her side, then her back. Then spreading her pale, soft, trembling thighs. “You’re comin’ on my tongue.”

He looked up her body as he lowered his head, the lamplight showing him everything: the lean muscle and silky skin of her thighs, the excited gleam of her cunt, the cable knit sweater he’d been too desperate to remove. Her round chin, that wide mouth, her beautiful dark eyes that met his and glistened. 

He pressed his straining cock against the floor, pushed his hair behind his ear, and carefully trapped her clit between his teeth. 

Her mouth slowly fell open and her eyes grew huge as Eliot stroked her captured clit with his tongue, not letting her eyes go, wanting her to understand that she was his, that he’d claimed her, that she was this animal’s prize for not following his instincts and going in for the kill. He added a finger, kept his strokes in and out of her clinging pussy in time with his tongue. As his tongue licked faster, his finger, then two fingers, began to pump faster. He had to wrap an arm around her thigh to keep her hard against his mouth. 

He never let go of her eyes. Lost, overwhelmed sounds, throaty and delicious, fell from those lips. 

She brought her knee up; let him have it all. He relaxed his teeth, surrounded her with his lips. And sucked, sucked and sucked as his fingers pistoned inside of her, deep and twisting. And when he felt that vibration, when anguish began to twist her face, he pulled out his fingers, pressed that knee against her chest, and buried his tongue as deep as it could go, fucking her hard and quick and ravenously with it.

Tongue-fucking her, he never dropped his eyes as Sabrina screamed and twisted and coated his tongue and shook beneath his hands and his mouth. He never stopped watching her, even as the vibration and eye candy and sweetness and pressure of his own body on his cock became too much, and he came in his jeans. 

With his wet jeans pressed against the floor, he held her ass like a bowl in his hands and gently fed off her as she came down. The skin around her too-sensitive clit was sticky-sweet goodness that he savored with his tongue. Her moans were helpless, her splayed limbs at his command.

She was his sacrificial lamb on his hardwood floor.

He was pretty proud of himself that he got her lifted up and into his bedroom and bed, considering the condition of his knees after the power of that no-touch orgasm. He stripped her down to her t-shirt – thank God she was wearing a t-shirt – then took off his own clothes, wiped himself down, and pulled on pajama pants, feeling Sabrina’s eyes on him the whole time. 

He was already semi-erect when he circled the bed and got in behind her. 

When she tried to turn to face him, he gripped her arm to stop her. Then he stroked his hand down her soft skin, surrounded her waist with his arm and pulled her back against his body. 

“Let that be enough for tonight,” he murmured into her neck, tucking his pajamaed legs behind her naked ones, nestling her t-shirted back against his naked chest. He’d withstood torture in a Southeast Asian prison. He could withstand her plump naked ass snuggling up against his covered cock.

“Why, Eliot?” She sounded lost. So confused and sad. He didn’t want to make her sad. 

But, “Please Sabrina,” was all he could tell her as he nuzzled into her neck and held her close. She quieted under his kisses and soothing touches. Eliot’s mind continued to storm as she drifted off to sleep in his arms.

Everything had changed. And nothing had. He wanted her and she wanted him; he could admit that now and not dismiss it with the claim that he was just “more of the same” for Sabrina. But wanting her unleashed in him exactly what he was afraid of – the animal that would rip apart anyone who threatened her. And with Eliot’s past and current line of work, the threat was all around, a constant even after they put Hugh McCormick down, a constant even if Eliot walked away from Leverage Inc. No amount of self-defense lessons could protect Sabrina from the revenge of Russian mobsters and Vietnamese sex traffickers and American mercenaries. He couldn’t let his sweet girl, full of light, full of hope and humor, be touched by that ugliness. And he couldn’t let her see the beast inside. It would be like burning a butterfly’s wing with a magnifying glass – searing away what was beautiful and good.

He could touch her. He could even (he groaned at how easy the thought came to him) love her. But he couldn’t have her. He couldn’t keep her. 

And he knew if he let himself make love to her, he’d never let her go.

\---------- (to be continued...)


End file.
